Bleeds to an End
by whodreamedit
Summary: Set right after 'Piggy Piggy'.  Violet and Tate's relationship grows more complex as Violet takes it upon herself to find out whether he is alive or dead.
1. My knife, it's sharp and cruel

Violet lay awake for a long time that night.

It didn't make sense. How could it be possible that Tate wasn't alive (she preferred 'wasn't alive' to 'dead' – 'dead' was too confronting. Too much like the things she'd seen in the basement. And Tate wasn't like those things. Was he?)? He had fallen asleep with his hand curled inside hers. He was warm. He was _breathing_.

She was cracking up. That was the only logical conclusion. Maybe her mom was right, and there had been some lasting psychological damage from the break in. And maybe Constance was just fucking with her. That seemed pretty likely. She'd been tapped in the head even before Addy had died. Perhaps that he just pushed her over the edge, and now she wanted everyone to suffer as much as she was. Would Constance set up a fake website just to screw with Violet? Would she really lie about her son having committed those horrible murders?

Violet let got of Tate's hand gently. He stirred a little in his sleep, a small snuffling sound as he buried his head in the pillow. She sat up, looking down at him. No way. It wasn't possible that he'd done those things. It didn't make sense that the same boy who'd brutally slaughtered his classmates would have sat with her in the bath-tub forcing her to regurgitate the pills she'd swallowed. The way he'd held her. So tightly she almost couldn't breathe.

She shook her head, running a hand through her long hair. It was too much to process. Tate. What he might have done. The shit she'd seen in the basement. The fact that he might not even be _alive_. She glanced over her shoulder at him. It was difficult to look at him now – it made her feel like a crazy person (though she couldn't work out whether she was crazy for half-believing Constance, or crazy for not believing her at all).

"What is this?" she muttered to herself, tangling her hands in her hair in frustration "…fucking 'Twilight'?"

As quietly as possible, she slipped off the bed and over to her dresser. The top was littered with crap – old CDs, books, jewellery, little china knick-knacks her grandmother had given her. She opened up a book and drew out an envelope concealed with the pages. Reaching in, she drew out a fresh, shiny razorblade. She looked over to Tate again. He was sleeping still, silently, one arm tucked under the pillow.

Tate had talked plenty about how he'd been a cutter – he'd even shown her the scars. It was one of the things that had drawn her to him, although a small part of her had known it probably wasn't healthy. But fuck healthy. He understood her. He didn't see the marks on her arms and demand a reason for them, or tell her that it was stupid, or bad, or wrong.

Could ghosts bleed?

Violet returned to her bed, kneeling down on the floor next to Tate. Her heart was beating hard against the walls of her chest, so hard she thought she could almost hear it. She bit her bottom lip, reaching out for Tate's hand, stroking it softly for a moment. Tate made gave a small sigh – frowned a little in his sleep.

Carefully, Violet turned his hand over so the palm faced upward. He didn't move – didn't seem to notice as she pushed the sleeve of his sweater up, enough to reveal the soft white underside of his wrist.

This was a stupid idea. She knew that. What kind of sick person thought about cutting up their boyfriend whilst he slept? But she needed to know. And it wasn't like she could ask, could she? 'Oh hi, met your mum, apparently you're dead – what's that about?'. All at once she remembered Halloween night – the kids on the beach. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably.

She took his hand in hers, pressing her thumb down on his palm to steady herself. His brows knit together, but he didn't wake. Her hand shook as she balanced the sharp edge of the razorblade against his wrist. Was she frightened? She couldn't tell anymore. She'd spent so long not being afraid of anything – or pretending not to be – that everything seemed unreal, like something from a dream. Had she been scared in the basement? She couldn't remember now. It seemed like something that had happened to someone else…or maybe something she'd watched on TV.

She swallowed heavily, pressing the blade down and dragging it swiftly up Tate's arm towards the bunched-up sleeve.

_Down the road, not across the street._

Pain worked reflexively, and Tate's body responded before he had time to work his way back to consciousness. He yanked his arm back towards his body before his eyes even opened, jerking awkwardly across to the other side of the bed, away from Violet. When he opened his eyes he looked lost – confused. "What…?" he murmured, sleepily, moving his arm away from his body to examine the cut with confusion. It had been deeper than Violet had intended – a thick gash that had not only broken the skin, but parted the flesh. Violet stared at it, in the half-dark. It was bloodless, as if she'd cut into a piece of raw chicken.

Tate's face contorted in pain as he stared at the cut.

"What the _fuck_, Vi?"

So Constance was right. He wasn't bleeding. He was a ghost.

But as she watched, the cut started to fill with blood. It blossomed through the split in his flesh, filling the gash quickly and spilling over his skin. He made a sound Violet couldn't quite interpret (anger? Pain? Confusion?) and stared at her, mouth slightly parted.

And then he smiled – a slow smirk that crept across his features like a cloud passing across the sun.

Violet looked up at him. Her heart seemed to have stopped beating temporarily. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come.

"Lick it up." Tate said, softly.

"What!" now that she was able to speak, the words started tumbling out all at once – jumbled, wrong "…Tate, I didn't mean with the…I just…your mom and then I…I thought I was going crazy so I – shit, you're bleeding so much – I…shit, I'm sorry…"

Tate sat up, tugging his sweater over his head. The sleeve pulled over the cut, scraping away the top layer of coagulating fluid, reopening the wound. He tossed the bloody garment on the floor, watching Violet carefully. He held out his arm to her.

"Lick. It. Up." He repeated, slowly.

At a loss for what else to do, Violet climbed back onto the bed. Tate said nothing – merely kept his arm out, extended towards her. She looked at him, wide eyed.

"Tate…I think you need a bandaid or…or stitches or something…fuck…" she winced as she watched the blood trail down the boys arm. "Maybe we should take you to hospi-"

"I didn't ask you." He replied, tonelessly. "I said lick it up."

Maybe she was dreaming. This could be a dream, couldn't it? Maybe he'd never saved her from the overdose after all, and this was all some elaborate hallucination she was having, prior to her death. Hands still shaking, she reaching out and took his arm, fingers curling around his wrist. His blood was hot, spilling out around her fingers.

"Jesus Christ…" she whimpered.

"Just do it."

Slowly, Violet bent her head towards the cut. She could smell the blood as she got closer – a thin, metallic scent like rust. She'd licked at her own blood before – it wasn't like she was squeamish about it, but this was different. There was so much. Closing her eyes, she stuck her tongue out, licking up the length of Tate's arm, her tongue darting back into her mouth slicked with his blood.

Tate began to laugh, softly.

"What's it like?" he asked her. His voice sounded soft again. Warm.

She opened her eyes to look at him. Her mouth was slightly open, dark and wet with blood.

"…it's…" she tried to think. She felt dizzy, suddenly. Not quite present in her own body. Tate's blood tasted different to her own. Richer, somehow. More complex.

"It's…good…?" she wasn't sure if that was the right answer, or even what she wanted to say.

He smiled at her, reaching out to grip her shoulders, pulling her close to him. His mouth closed over hers, licking the blood from her lips, his tongue opening up her mouth, tangling with hers.

Violet moaned gently into the kiss, allowing herself to be pulling down onto the mattress, Tate repositioning himself to hover above her.

He broke the kiss, looking down at her. His bloody arm was rubbing against her bare shoulder, where her t-shirt had slipped down.

"I don't care why you did it." He said. She could feel his weight above her, his hips pressing against hers. All at once she wanted him, badly. Worse than she had when they were on the beach. She let out a shaky breath, reaching one hand up to rest on his hip, pushing up the fabric of his t-shirt. His skin was warm.

"But you owe me, now." He continued. There was something in his eyes – something unreadable. She didn't reply, just snaked her hand a little further up, over his stomach, up to graze along his ribs.

Tate's eyes closed for a moment. His hips pressed down against hers.

"That's how it…works…" his breathing was heavier. She could feel it through the erratic swell of his chest. "You…cut me...I…cut…you. Next time."

Violet let her hand fall back down to the waistband of his pants. She wanted to go on, but something stopped her. Maybe it was the implication of 'next time'. Or the memory of what had happened Halloween night. How shitty she'd felt when he'd rejected her.

"Okay," she agreed, letting her hand fall back to the bloody sheets beside her. "I'll let you. Next time."


	2. I think I'm paranoid

"How was school?"

Violet looked up at her mother, a forkful of salad poised halfway to her mouth. Dinner was even more annoying now that her dad wasn't living with them. Without the buffer of 'adult conversation' (which generally consisted of her parents sniping at one another across the dinner table, or strained pleasantries and cold glances) Vivien Harmon had returned her attention to her teenager daughter with the kind of manic happiness usually displayed by some of Ben's kookier patients.

Violet closed her mouth over the fork, chewing on the salad slowly, deliberately. She said nothing.

"…Violet?" Vivien smiled tightly. "Honey, how was school?"

Violet rolled her eyes, placing her fork back on the table.

"I heard you the first time, mom. It was fine."

"Fine?" her mom wasn't eating much. She her chin on her balled-up fist. "Have you…made many friends yet? What about those girls who were-"

Violet interrupted, suddenly.

"Do you believe in ghosts, mom?"

Vivien raised her eyebrows, surprised. "Ghosts?" she laughed, hollowly. "That's a weird question, Vi…"

Violet shrugged, pushing the salad around her plate. "Sure. Ghosts. You know…'things that go bump in the night'…" she glanced up at her mother, smirking slightly.

Vivien frowned.

"I hadn't really thought about it."

Violet sighed. Of course she hadn't. She wasn't even sure why she'd bothered to ask – why she'd thought that perhaps on this occasion her mother might give her a honest answer instead of the same canned bullshit she'd been feeding her since she was a child. When was she going to figure out that Violet wasn't a little kid anymore? She'd thought maybe after the home invasion something had changed between she and her mother. But apparently not.

"Yeah, right." Violet pushed her chair away from the table, standing up. "You've never thought about it…even though you live in a _murder_house…"

Vivien watched her daughter leave the room, wearing an expression of utter confusion.

It had been surprisingly easy to get Ben to agree to see him again. After their meeting on Halloween the power had shifted slightly. Ben was obviously embarrassed, and when Tate didn't show up to a few of their subsequent coffee-and-crying dates, he'd been more inclined to reconsider his position. Tate liked to think it was because Ben cared deeply about his mental health, but he suspected it had more to do with the fact that Ben was flat broke.

"So…" Ben tapped his pen on his notebook. "…why didn't you show up to our last few meetings, Tate? I thought we had an agreement."

Tate shrugged, pulling the sleeves of his sweater over his hands.

"I just forgot, I guess."

"You forgot?" Ben raised an eyebrow "…come on Tate. I thought you wanted to get better. It's a commitment – do you understand that? We're talking about your health, here. And your safety. You can't just 'forget' to show up…"

Tate shrugged, slumping back in the chair.

"I'm sorry Doctor Harmon. It wasn't like…deliberate. I just had a lot on my mind, you know?"

"Like what?" Ben leaned forward in his chair. "Have you been sleeping okay, Tate? Have the visions been bothering you again?"

"Again?" Tate laughed hollowly, reaching up to run a hand through his hair "…are you kidding? Try 'always'. It's constant, man. I don't _get_a break. If I'm not seeing it, then I'm thinking about it – thinking about all those bodies lined up. That's what I do, sometimes…what I see myself do. I play with the corpses, you know?" he looked over at Ben, his eyes wide. There was something unnerving about Tate's expression; a mixture of fear and amusement that came to rest in the upturned corners of his mouth and the quirk of his eyebrows. "Move them around, arrange them…sometimes in shapes – like pentagrams and shit. Or sometimes I write things out in their blood. Messages…but I can't tell if I'm writing to myself or to whoever's gonna find the bodies…" he ran a hand through his hair again, agitated. The sleeve of his baggy sweater slid down his arm.

Ben Harmon had been a psychiatrist a long time – long enough to know that patients who wore long sleeves were often hiding something. Even if he hadn't been looking for it, it would have been difficult not to notice the lengthy tear in Tate's flesh. The wound was recent; raised, red, the skin around the edges of the scab puckered and shiny where it was attempting to grow back together.

Tate caught the change in Ben's expression. Slowly, he reached up to pull down his sleeve.

"Tate…"

Tate stared at Ben, expressionlessly.

"How did you get that cut, Tate?"

"It's not what you think."

"What do you believe I think?" Ben paused, made a few marks on his notebook.

"That I did it to myself. I didn't. Okay? I'm through with that shit." There was a change in Tate's voice. A hardening of consonants. It made him sound older, somehow. Stronger.

"Alright." Ben looked up at him. "So tell me about it. What happened?"

"You really wanna know?" Tate's mouth quirked up into a sly smile.

"Yes, Tate. I really want to know."

Tate leaned back in the chair, kicking his feet up onto the arm.

"Your daughter cut me. In my sleep."

Ben's expression froze. He bent his head hastily, making a few notes in his book.

"…you were right about her, Doc. Well…" he laughed "…sort of. Maybe not fearless – but broken, sure. You know that's what it is, right? Come on…you're a good psychiatrist. You know people need fear to survive, right? Fight or flight. Well, your daughter doesn't have that. Violet doesn't understand about flight. But she's got the fight part covered." He laughed again, swinging his legs off the end of the chair. "Man, you should have seen it. Her expression when I started bleeding all over her clean white sheets. She didn't know what to do about it. But I helped her out…"

Ben stood up, abruptly. "I gave you a chance, Tate. I don't want to hear it – any of this – we've been over this. I think you should leave."

Tate's laughter died away. He swung his legs off the chair and stood up, slowly. His expression hardened.

"I'm telling this so you can help her, Doctor Harmon. You don't get it, do you? She's not right. She's changed. And you and your _lovely_wife don't even notice. You're too fucking self absorbed to realise your baby girl is sneaking razorblades out of your bathroom cabinet and using them to cut herself up every night. And now she's done it to me. You think it'll stop there?" Tate was shaking now. He shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to steady himself. "Because believe me, it doesn't. It doesn't _stop_. You already lost one baby, Doctor Harmon. Don't lose another one."

Ben watched Tate leave with a blank expression. He heard footfalls on the landing – down the stairs – dying away, followed soon after by the distant slam of the front door.

Should he believe Tate? The boy was troubled, there was no doubt about it…and sure, he'd lied before. But would he lie about this? Ben leaned over his desk, hands braced either side of his notes, staring at the pages in the hope that he might find the answer there. Maybe he should talk to Viv. If she'd even talk to him at all. She'd have noticed, if something was up with Violet…wouldn't she?

His head hurt. It was going to be a long day.

Violet turned the doorknob to her father's office. It opened without resistance, and she half-smiled, shaking her head as she walked into the empty room. Typical. Of course it wouldn't occur to her dad to maybe _lock_the room where he kept all his patients' confidential records. Just like it hadn't apparently occurred to him that counselling the mentally ill in his _family__home_was maybe not the greatest idea in the world.

Violet looked around the room nonchalantly, wandering over to the bookshelves, tracing her fingertips along the thick leather spines. She hadn't even had to wait until nightfall to break into her father's office. Her mom was out. Ben had stopped seeing patients for the day. The house was empty – she was alone.

And she knew exactly what she was looking for.

She'd been curious about Ben's patient files for awhile. Who wouldn't be? She could only imagine the gruesome, perverse shit her father got to listen to every day of the week, and it was only natural (she felt) to have an interest in it. She'd been saving the break in for a rainy day – half putting it off with the excuse of having too much homework, or wanting to finish the book she was reading, or whatever. She'd been curious, yes – but she hadn't wanted to be careless. So it had remained a secret desire…something she always said she'd get around to one day. When the opportunity presented itself.

As it turned out, it had been a combination of opportunity and necessity that landed her here in her dad's office at five thirty in the evening, already beginning to feel the nasty tug of guilt pulling her back towards the door, towards the safety (and moral high ground) of her bedroom. But she stopped herself…turned back towards Ben's desk, her brow furrowed in determination. She would find what she was looking for. She had to.

Violet walked behind the desk, glancing at the papers and folders that lay strewn across it. Evidently Ben wasn't so great at organising things – or keeping things tidy. Most of the papers looked like inconsequential bullshit; bills, invoices, print-outs for real estate websites (which she assumed were left over from when he was hunting for a place to live) and outdated issues of _Psychology__Today_. Nothing all that useful, really. But it was so messy, she figured he wouldn't notice if she moved things around a bit…

Whilst she searched, Violet reflected on the past few days. The night with Tate in her bedroom had been…intense, but she still hadn't figured out what it proved (or didn't prove). She'd realised, after the fact, that she knew sweet fuck all about ghosts. What was the point of making Tate bleed if she didn't even know whether _not_bleeding was a typical ghost _thing_? So far, Tate wasn't ticking too many of the stereotypical ghost boxes. He was corporeal. He could touch things and interact with his environment. She'd never seen him walk through a wall or float six inches above the floor or rattle chains or fade into a fine mist, so if she was going to even slightly consider the fact that he could be _not__alive_, she was obviously going to have to review her assumptions about what ghosts were.

Quite aside from the ghost thing, there were a lot of other things plaguing her about that night. He'd said he loved her. Actually _said_ it. Nobody had ever done that before – well, aside from her parents, obviously. But nobody significant. It hadn't made her feel like she'd always thought it would. Something about the way Tate said it…or maybe it was the circumstances, the fact that she'd…well, nearly died. It had made her feel wrong, somehow. Almost sick.

She bit her bottom lip, rifling through a number of files Ben had stored in the very back of a drawer. When Tate had told her he loved her, she'd realised how little she actually knew about him. How much of their connection could be based on a lie – or worse, on some stupid assumption she'd made. Why did he like her so much? Or better yet, why did _she_like _him?_Because he liked the same music that she did? Because he saw her scars and didn't lecture her, or freak out and run away? Because he was fucked up, and there was something deeply wrong and disturbed in her that found that attractive – sexy, even? She grit her teeth, opening another drawer and flipping through the folders. She had to find out what was going on with Tate. What he was _really_like - who he was.

It was another thirty minutes before she found his file – weirdly, wedged between two books that sat on the smaller book-shelf next to the chair Ben usually reserved for patients. After she'd found it, she'd spent nearly as long again tidying up the room a little, trying to restore it to the same particular style of mess it had displayed when she'd first entered. It was getting dark now. Her dad wouldn't be back at the house, in theory, until the morning – and it wasn't as though her mom was going to come poking around in Ben's study. With a final glance around the room to ensure that everything was as she'd left it, Violet tucked Tate's file inside her baggy cardigan and left the room.


	3. Somebody that I used to know

**AN**: _I'm trying to keep this story up to speed with canon, so this chapter is inclusive of canon up to and including E07/'Open House'. This means Tate has asked Vi to stop cutting, Violet knows (from Tate) that there are ghosts in the house/that she can see ghosts (and therefore is probably starting to accept, slowly and reluctantly, that Tate is not alive), and Ben and Tate have had their session where Ben asks Tate to let him know if anything is up with Violet. Obviously in the last chapter I wrote Ben and Tate had a similar session to this, which did not end as well (Tate got cocky, Ben got surly). Let's just assume they did some bridge-building and went on to have the slightly more pleasant session we see in 'Open House' ;)_

* * *

><p>Violet lay in the bathtub reading. Being in the bathroom didn't weird her out as much as it probably should…she'd almost been drowned in here, after all. Not to mention almost dying here, before Tate had made her throw up into the freezing cold water. She should probably feel something. A sense of apprehension – especially now that she knew a ghost could step through the wall at any minute, bleeding and wailing and carrying on. They always seemed to want something from her; that was what most bothered her about them. They weren't the silent spectres you read about in ghost stories. They wanted to <em>talk<em>or hang out or play or whinge or yell at her. Maybe hurt her. It was fucked. The whole thing was fucked. But now that she knew what was happening, somehow it scared her less.

It was easier not to fear things when you knew what they were. When you knew that with a simple command; _go__ AWAY_– they would disappear.

Violet leaned back in the bath, holding the page of notes aloft to avoid getting the paper wet. Her father's handwriting scratched across the page in uneven patches, some parts crossed out, written over again, highlighted, annotated. It was difficult to make out some bits…but she was getting the picture. And it wasn't particularly reassuring.

_Patient displays two very different personas...confidence, assertiveness, mania; grandiose statements masquerading as philosophy indicate a troubling fascination with… - talk of violence, blood, gore, 'carnage' – patient seems proud of his delusions/visions. God-complex?_

_at other times seems scared, almost child-like. Difficulty making eye-contact, apologetic, polite…_

_Disturbing fixation with Violet. _

_Obsession with sex, violence – needs to get a rise out of people (me) – is this why he is doing it?_

Violet chewed absently on her lower lip as she read, her brows knitting together. This didn't seem like the Tate she knew…not entirely, anyway. He'd never talked to her about anything violent, or mentioned anything about visions. And although he obviously enjoyed getting a rise out of her, she'd never felt particularly threatened or weirded out by it. If anything, it was part of what made him so attractive. He liked to stir shit. She could dig that.

But reading his file, Violet started to question whether she _should _dig it. He was talking to her father about her? About sex? About sex _and _(or, indeed, with) her? She shook her head, shuffling the pages, scanning over the notes. Something caught her eye – a post-it note stuck to one of the papers:

_Family dinner – talk to Violet about her behaviour. Concerned about depression. _

Violet sat up in the bath, leaning forward over the pages. She peeled the post-it back to read the notes beneath it.

_Patient has long, deep wound on his arm. Claims it is not self inflicted – that it was inflicted by Violet. Patient also claims Violet regularly causes harm to herself._

"What are you reading?"

Violet started, the papers fluttering out of her hands, just barely missing the water and tumbling over the edge of the bath-tub onto the floor. She jerked her arms towards her upper body, scrambling to cover herself up.

Tate stood by the bathroom door. It was still closed, Violet noted. He looked normal. All wide-eyes and messy hair and slumped shoulders.

"…Tate, what the fuck?"

"Sorry…" He smiled awkwardly, "I just…."

"You can't just _walk__ in_ whilst I'm _taking __a __bath!__"_

"I just wanted to talk. I can close my eyes if you wa-"

"No. Fuck." Violet pressed her fingertips to her eyelids, shaking her head. "Forget it. Just…can you pass me a towel?"

Tate smirked to himself as he picked a towel from the rack, turning around again to hand the towel to Violet, expressionlessly.

"Thanks," she mumbled, taking it from him and looking up at him expectantly. "Uh…"

"What?" he blinked.

"Turn around."

"Oh yeah. Right." He glanced down at her briefly, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips as he turned to face the wall.

Violet kept her eyes on him as she clambered out of the tub, wrapping the towel around her small frame. She sat on the toilet seat, clearing her throat. She had to remember to be annoyed. Because she was. She was pissed. He'd told her dad. What the fuck was that about? And the shit her dad her written about him…

"You can um…turn around."

Tate turned to look at her. He smiled sheepishly, moving to sit on the edge of the bath.

"…so what were you reading?" he asked.

"Your patient file." Her voice was toneless. She tried to quell the shake in it – the feeling of panic that surged through her as she admitted that she'd broken his trust. "I took it from my dad's office."

Tate gazed at her in silence for a few moments. Then his mouth broke into a broad grin.

"Yeah, right." He laughed, running a hand through his hair "Funny, Vi. You really had me going…"

"No. Really." She had managed to get her voice under control now. It was cold – without emotion. The same voice she used to talk to her parents. It made sense, she figured. Her parents were bullshitters. So, apparently, was Tate.

A cloud of doubt passed over his face.

Violet figured she ought to continue before she lost her nerve. It was difficult to maintain her composure, whilst wearing a towel. She folded her arms across her chest, her brow furrowing.

"Why'd you tell my dad that I cut you?"

"You can't just read someone's personal psych profile, Vi…" Tate's voice wavered. He looked distressed. "That's like…a violation of privacy. That's _fucked_…" his voice was growing louder, more forceful.

"Yeah, well what's **really** fucked is all the shit you've been telling my dad!" Violet retorted, her voice raising in pitch. She was angry again, now. Properly angry. How could he just sit there and try to blame _her _for this? "That you have visions you're killing people! What the hell, Tate? And the shit you tell him about me – about what you want to…" she trailed off, her cheeks flushing "…with me. Shit." She rested her head in her hands.

Tate's anger dissipated immediately. He dropped to his knees on the floor, reaching out to grip Violet's wrists. Gently, he pulled her hands away from her face.

"Vi…come on. I'm just screwing with him – with your dad. You know that. You know _me_."

"Do I?" Violet shot back. She was annoyed to find that she was just barely holding back tears. She swallowed heavily. "I don't know what I know anymore. Everything's weird. My dad thinks you're crazy…that you've got some crazy violent god complex…" she thought back to the kids on the beach…to what they'd said to her on the front porch. _She __doesn__'__t __know_.

Tate's bottom lip trembled.

"Have I ever given you _any _reason not to trust me?" his voice broke, his eyes filling with tears. "When, Vi? When did I do anything that made you think you couldn't trust me? When I saved your life? When I told you I loved you?"

Violet bit back a sob. She tugged her wrists out of his grasp. How could he be this person with her, and this totally different person when he was talking to her dad? How could he be the same guy who'd shot a whole bunch of innocent kids at point blank?

"I _love __you_ Vi!" Tate's face was streaked with tears. He could feel the panic rising in him. He was losing ground – losing her. "Violet…look at me."

Violet opened her eyes again. It hurt to look at him.

"Go away." She said, flatly.

Tate's face paled. He began to shake his head, miserably.

"Vi, no…"

"I **said**_ go__ away!__" _she shut her eyes tight, balling her hands into fists. "Just **fuck ****off**, ok?"

It was silent, beyond the darkness behind her eyes. She couldn't hear him sniffling any more. She couldn't hear him breathing.

Still shaking from the occasional sob, Violet opened her eyes.

The bathroom was empty, save for the scattered pages of Tate's psych notes that littered the tiled floor.


	4. No more dreaming of the dead

He's not sure where is, only that it is defined by an absence. He read somewhere that life is constructed of polarities; light can exist because darkness does, too. To have good, you must also have evil.

Here, there is no balance. There is only a blackness – a void that is impossible to describe due to the absolute lack of everything.

He isn't sure if he is asleep or awake. It's as if he's conscious during the blank spaces between dreams…as if he's being forced to live through every empty, agonising moment, aware of the nothingness.

He thinks maybe this is what being dead feels like.

It had been a week since the day in the bathroom.

She'd returned the notes (only very slightly watermarked) to her father's desk. If he'd noticed, he hadn't said anything. Both her parents had left her more or less alone – she assumed because of how badly their last intervention had gone. Maybe they'd given up. Well, good. They couldn't help her. They'd never been able to help her – they'd never understood how. And now? How was she even supposed to ask for help? _Hey__mom,__turns__out__my__boyfriend__is__a__ghost__who__may__or__may__not__have__massacred__his__classmates__back__in__the__90s.__And__I__think__I__'__ve__banished__him__or__something.__And__I__don__'__t__know__how__to__get__him__back.__Help?_

Her dad would probably have her committed. She still wondered – usually during the very early hours of the morning, when the gray light was just starting to creep through the crack in her curtains – whether that was what she needed. Real, serious psychiatric help. She no longer felt like she was going mad. But then mad people usually didn't. That was what worried her; the numbness. The slow realisation that all the things she'd seen and learned in the past month were _real_.

She'd found it easier to deal when she was sure she was losing her mind.

And there had been Tate, then. Tate, to smooth her hair out of her eyes, to let her bury her face into his sweater and tell her how to make the bad things disappear. Tate, to shove his fingers down her throat and rid her stomach of the drugs that were slowly poisoning her.

Now all she had was the silent, empty house.

Violet tossed aside the book she had been half-heartedly reading and slumped back onto the bed. She stared the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster. Her room was dark, although it was mid-afternoon. She'd blocked the windows up with newspaper. She kept the curtains drawn all the time. It was easier to sleep that way – and that was how she'd spent most of her time since the evening she'd told take to get fucked. Sleeping, or wishing that she could sleep.

The irritating thing about regret was that it made you forget why you'd been angry in the first place. She didn't care anymore that he'd told her dad about the cutting. She didn't care that he talked about wanting to fuck her (in fact, in retrospect, she probably should have taken that as a compliment), or that he had all these crazy homicidal visions he hadn't told her about. It all seemed so trivial now. Even the fact that he'd shot up his school seemed trivial.

She hadn't even asked him about it. That was what was eating her up. She rolled over onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow. She'd just gotten angry – lashed out. And the worst part was, she didn't know how to take it back. If this was a normal relationship she could send him a text, or write on his fucking facebook wall or something. Normal relationship problems for girls her age were fixed with a simple 'I'm sorry' and a less-than-three. Typical that she'd fall for the guy who not only didn't have facebook, but didn't seem to have a pulse either.

Violet groaned into the pillow, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She ran her hands through her hair, tugging on the roots in irritation. Maybe Constance would know something. Constance had told her Tate was a ghost, after all.

Slipping off the bed, Violet walked bare-foot to her bedroom door.

The blackness won't last forever – he knows this. He's been here before, many times; death's waiting room. The problem is that even though he knows it will end eventually, it doesn't help. The time spent here feels like an eternity, like standing in the middle of a tunnel and watching the pin-pricks of light on either side grow further and further away. Time stretches and distorts beyond all meaning. He would count the seconds (if for no other reason than to pass the time), but what would be the point when he doesn't know what number he is counting to?

He doesn't even remember whether he's capable of pulling out of this himself, or whether he simply has to wait. He doesn't know what the magic words are, whether there even are any. As the nothingness creeps closer, starts gnawing on his fingertips, on his toes, he begins to lose the certainty that he will ever return to the land of the living. Maybe this is the one time where it won't work – where the universe flips him off and leaves him stranded in the abyss forever. A final 'fuck you' for his sins. The universe does have a pretty sick sense of humour. It'd be a fitting punishment.

Moira was in the kitchen frying up something in a pan when Violet wandered in. Usually Moira preferred to ignore Violet. She wasn't of any particular importance, and thus it suited her better to pretend the sulky, sullen child wasn't there. But something about Violet had changed. She could sense it immediately, though the teenager's appearance would otherwise have been a dead giveaway. No pun intended. She looked like hell.

"Where do you think you're going?" Moira smoothed her hands on her apron, looking at Violet disapprovingly.

_Die._Violet willed her, with a dark look. _Just__fucking__die._

She did her best approximation of a charming smile. Given her current mood, it came out rather more like a grimace.

"I was gonna go see if Constance was home…my er…my mom leant her….this…." Violet glanced around the kitchen for a likely candidate "…pot. Yup." She picked up a pot from the drying rack. "I should get it back to her. She…you know…probably needs to cook things. In it."

Inwardly, Moira rolled her eyes.

"She's not home." She said. It wasn't a lie, either. Constance seemed to be out of the house more and more these days, though Moira hadn't the faintest clue where she went. She only hoped that one of these days, accident and misadventure might prevent her from returning. Preferably accident. Involving a troupe of escaped, rabid circus animals.

"Oh," Violet visibly deflated. She placed the pan back on the sideboard and leaned back against the counter. "…never mind then, I guess."

Against her better judgment, Moira felt a strange sort of pity for the girl. She looked godawful; bags under her eyes, lank, greasy hair…her clothes looked like they'd been slept in and mystifyingly, she had no shoes on.

"Is something the matter, Miss Violet?"

Violet looked up at the old woman, her bottom lip curling slightly. She didn't like Moira – not particularly. Not after what she'd stumbled in on in her father's office that day (which was weird, and perverse, and something she tried not to think about it). And it made her feel uncomfortable…having a maid. It's not like they fucking needed one. She didn't like the idea of someone in the house, touching all her stuff.

But it had been a fucked up week. Shit, a fucked up month. And it had been a long time since somebody had asked her, genuinely and without a sense of obligation, if she was okay. Well, besides Tate.

Shit. Tate.

Violet bit her bottom lip, willing herself not to cry.

Moira sighed. She was way too soft – she had a feeling she was going to regret this. "Sit down. Come on."

Violet allowed herself to be manoeuvred onto one of the kitchen stools. She sat there in silence for a few minutes, staring at the pristine countertop miserably.

"Is it about the new baby…?" Moira ventured "…because it can be very difficult when a new baby comes along, I know, but you ju-"

"No! Shit," Violet glared at Moira "I don't give a crap about mom and her ridiculous emotional-band-aid pregnancy. It's Tate, he…."

"Tate?" Moira froze. Constance's phantom, psychopathic son wasn't on her list of favourite people at the best of times. And this certainly didn't seem to be the best of times. She'd noticed him skulking around the house more often than usual since the Harmons had moved in, but she hadn't realised that he'd…

"I told him to go away, but I didn't mean it – not really. And now he…I haven't seen him in a week, and I don't know how to fix it…" the words poured out of Violet unbidden. She didn't even stop to consider whether they would make any sense to the housekeeper. Just getting them out made her feel very slightly better.

Moira frowned. Something was definitely different about the girl – different beyond an increase in melancholy. She seemed more fragile…but at the same time, more…open? In tune? Moira couldn't put her finger on it, but it seemed like Violet was somehow less of a stranger than she had been previously. More a part of the house.

She couldn't know, surely? It always baffled Moira, that the living could remain so ignorant of the goings on in the house. And yet their ignorance persisted. Human beings had a singular talent for denying that which frightened them.

But Violet hadn't ever seemed frightened of the house.

"Well…why don't you just try calling him?" Moira suggested, lightly "…I'm sure he'll forgive you."

Violet looked up at Moira. Through the haze of tears, she thought for a minute she saw someone else – someone younger. She rubbed the back of her hand over her eyelids. When she opened them, the old woman was peering at her in concern.

Violet narrowed her eyes.

"Whatever. You've taken care of this house for five thousand years, or whatever. Don't tell me you don't know."

Moira's heart sank.

"Know?" she laughed softly, shaking her head "…what on earth are you talking about, dear? Know what?"

"Stop fucking bullshitting." Violet retorted. "About the ghosts. You can't have looked after this house for all these years and _not__have__noticed._"

Moira's lips thinned.

"What do you know about Tate Langdon?" she asked, flatly. Her frail, bird like arms folded across her chest.


	5. Tap the vein that bleeds

_1991_

Tate lay on his back, stretched out on his bed. He was bored. He was _always _bored. School bored him; the work was too easy, his peers were uninteresting and intellectually slow. Home bored him; his mother was rarely home, disappearing for hours on end on unspecified 'errands' that had her arriving home later and later, red faced, full of empty apologies for forgetting to fix dinner. His father had up and left some weeks back – his mom didn't like to talk about it, but when he pressed her she cited 'irreconcilable differences'. She'd told Tate his father had moved to Indiana to make babies with his twenty one year old secretary. He knew it was bullshit. The smeared lipstick on his mother's mouth told him everything he needed to know.

He guessed that should have made life more interesting – family drama, infidelity, the fact that his mom was gaining a reputation for being some kind of a-political Monica Lewinski. There were whispers of it from the neighbours sometimes. He'd see them staring when he arrived home from school, standing on their perfectly manicured lawns, gaping up at the curtained windows of the house, trying to catch a glimpse of what they thought might be lurking in the attic. The neighbours had no sympathy for Constance, but they couldn't prove anything. They stuck to their whispers and rumours, and kept a tight hand on their husbands. Should they pass Tate's mother in the street, they'd smile sweetly, make small talk, feign empathy for the departure of her husband, for how _hard _it must be to raise the children by herself.

In truth, Tate found the whole dog and pony show extremely tiring. What could be more banal than a cheating wife and a pissed off husband? What could be more fucking typical, more _dull _than a self-absorbed, neglectful mother and an absent father?

Sometimes he wondered if life ever improved, or if you simply learned to embroil yourself in the trivialities of existence that seemed to occupy most of the adults he knew. Was that what he had to look forward to? Learning fifty new ways to lie and cheat and abuse the people around him? Was life just an endless parade of self-serving assholes?

Was that what he would become?

Tate closed his eyes and let his mind drift. Why did he seem to be the only person he knew who didn't want to become one of _those _people. It seemed like you had to either choose to play the game – to play into the filthy fucking sideshow that the world had become – or allow yourself to fall by the wayside…let yourself be trodden on, chewed up, spit out. He frowned, his hands coming to rest on his stomach. He knew he wasn't a doormat – or at least, he didn't want to be. Why did it seem like the only way to take action in the world was to become part of the problem?

_Or die_, a small voice in the back of his head prompted. _There's always that. The final 'fuck you' to the system. Refuse to be a part of the problem. You didn't ask for this – to be alive. You don't owe anybody anything. You could neutralise yourself before the dirty, stinking world has the chance to fill you with it's filth, with it's bile. You could do that, you know. It would be so easy._

A familiar fantasy creeps back: he is lying in a pool of his own blood – still, glassy eyed, his breath coming in jagged, wet gulps. It's a clean death, in his imagination. Just the wounds on his wrists. Just a little blood on the bathroom floor. A stain that won't take too long to wash off. He can't imagine anyone will have much more trouble removing the stain of his memory, either. His mother barely seems to notice him as it is. His father doesn't care. His father _left._

Tate sat up, suddenly. He rolled up the sleeves of his jumper, staring for a minute at the perfect, white flesh of his wrists. He'd never tried it before. He wondered how hard it would be, to break through the skin. Whether it would be easy to hit a vein. How much it would all bleed.

He shifted off the bed, moving to the desk in the far corner of the room. Rummaging through the drawers, he finally located what he was looking for. The craft knife wasn't as sharp as he would have liked, but it'll do for an experiment. _And that's all this is, _he told himself_. An experiment._

Tate's pulse pounded in his ears, a deafening sea of blood. He could feel the adrenaline kicking in even before he took the blade to his wrist and pressed down. He almost felt sick with it, and he lessened the pressure somewhat, just in case. He wasn't ready to die. Not yet. He just wanted to _know._

He hesitated for a few moments, before closing his eyes and dragging the dull blade over his skin. It didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. For a moment he wasn't even sure he'd broken the skin. He opened his eyes, staring down at the wound. The flesh had parted so cleanly that it took a couple of seconds for the cut to fill with blood.

The blood came with another rush of adrenaline. Tate watched it intently, mouth half open, squeezing the skin together so that the blood pooled faster. The sight of it made his stomach flip flop, a mixture of excitement and…something else. A burning deep inside him. A pressure.

Before he even realised what he was doing, one hand had crept down the front of his jeans, rubbing himself through his boxers. Fuck – something about the sight of blood. He lifted his wrist to his mouth, flicking his tongue over the wound, his free hand continuing to massage his cock.

"What are you doing?"

Tate whirled around, folding both arms across his chest defensively, his bloody wrist pressed against his gray t-shirt. His pants were still unzipped, but fortunately the t-shirt was baggy enough to cover the bulge in his pants.

Moira stood in the doorway, one impeccably manicured eyebrow raised. She'd been dead three weeks – not that Tate knew that, nor would he be able to tell by her appearance. She'd been surprised to find how much control she had over how she appeared. No wounds. No marks. Almost everyone seemed to see her just as she had been, whilst alive. She liked that.

"I thought you got fired." Tate didn't answer her question, just leaned back against the desk, glaring at her. She'd interrupted. It was rude, just to barge into someone's room like that. Even if she _was _still employed to clean the place.

Moira laughed, shaking her head as she walked into the room. Her fingertips danced lightly over the footboard of his bed. She glanced up at him.

"What makes you think I got fired?"

"You haven't been around." He pointed out.

"Aw," she smirked, moving closer to him, one hand coming to rest on her hip. "That's sweet. You noticed."

Tate frowned at her, uncertainly. He wasn't sure what she wanted, but her presence was making him uncomfortable. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. He brushed past her to sit back down on his bed.

"You're awfully sulky." She commented, lightly, turning around again to face him. She hopped up on the desk, crossing one leg slowly over the other. Her skirt was ridiculously short, he noticed. Impractical for cleaning, really. He glanced at her stockinged thighs for a moment – only a moment – before losing interest. His erection was already gone. Sure, the woman was attractive – but so what? There were lots of attractive people in the world. It didn't make them any less corrupt or dirty or useless.

"I guess." He shrugged, pressing his wrists firmly against his body. The blood from his cut was soaking into his tshirt, warm and wet. He let out a heavy sigh.

"What is it?" she asked, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. It was an obvious move – so obvious Tate almost laughed.

"You should button your blouse." He replied, coldly. "It's indecent."

Moira's eyes narrowed. She leaned back again, letting out a soft, derisive snort.

"You think you're so much better than everyone else, don't you, Tate Langdon? Moping around in this room, waiting for daddy to come home, waiting for mommy to give you some attention. Trapped in this accursed house with your handicapped sister and your mongoloid brother restrained in the attic. You think yourself positively Byronic, don't you? A tortured little anti-hero." She slipped off the desk, stalking over to him.

He tilted his head back to look up at her. She was significantly taller than him, at this angle – him perched on the end of the bed, her towering above him in six inch heels. Her hands were splayed against the curves of her hips. Her red lips curled downwards in a scowl.

"I know what you were doing. What you were thinking. And it's sick. You're as bad as your mother – a crazy, self-absorbed little shit who thinks the world revolves around him. You want to know what happened to daddy?"

"What?" he drawled, boredly. Moira was testing his patience now. He didn't care for her short skirts or her cleavage or her bullshit revelations about his family. He wanted her out of his space – out of his house.

"Your mommy shot him in the head," Moira raised her fingers to her temple, miming the shot. "Bang, bang…" she leaned closed to him, close enough to whisper in his ear "_you're dead._"

Tate froze. Something twisted uncomfortably in his gut. Suddenly, it felt as though he could see the broader picture – see the truth that had previously been obscured. It made sense. Something about it made sense.

"You're lying."

"You wish I was," Moira purred, her lips just barely brushing his neck "but you know she could do it. You know she's just crazy enough."

Tate swallowed heavily. His throat tasted of bile.

"…and without your daddy," Moira continued, pulling back from Tate to look down at him, one eyebrow quirked "…how are you supposed to learn how to be a real man, hm? How are you supposed to learn how to live in the cold, cruel world?"

"Get out," Tate mumbled feebly, dropping his gaze to the floor. "I don't believe you."

Moira ignored him, reaching out to stroke her delicate hand across his cheek. She laughed as he flinched away.

"Personally," she said, as she straightened up "I'd try the basement, next time you want to indulge your sick little fantasies." She walked over to the door, turning back for just a moment, lips curled upward in a sly smirk.

"You'll like it down there. You might even make some friends."

Moira relaxed as she left the room. Her body changed – spine curling, shoulders slumping. Her face felt as if it were melting, almost – then crinkling up like a used tissue. She walked purposefully past the mirror in the hallway, not wanting to see the person that she really was, her soul seeping through her pores, withering her, turning her haggard. She wasn't perfect; she'd always known that. And she'd done terrible things. Unforgivable things. But her punishment – death, at the hand of _Constance _– did not befit her sins. Why should that deplorable woman live whilst she was buried in a shallow grave behind the house?

Perhaps it was wrong – to want Constance to pay for what she had done. And perhaps it was worse still to drag her son into it. But Moira knew how much she cared for the boy; her only unblemished child. Her legacy. Let her lose him to the darkness of the house, just as Moira's own mother had lost her child. Let Constance suffer for _her _sins.

After all, Tate was halfway to darkness all by himself. All he needed was a push in the right direction.


	6. I'm pretty when I lie

_**AN:** Whoop! Fixed a few incidentals in previous chapters (like the Lewinsky reference – thanks Anon!). I also want to take a moment to pimp out the collab fic between ohyellowbird and I – a delicious piece of dark Violate goodness that you can read on ohyellowbird's account. The fic is called 'Monster' and you can read it here (as ff won't let you type out urls, just type in fanfiction dot net and then everything after the ':' (beginning with the slash):_

fan fiction dot net : /s/7588645/1/Monster

_Thanks for reading! I honestly didn't expect this fic to have so many readers, and I'm always keen to hear feedback, so reviews are very much welcomed and appreciated! Cheers_

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><p>"So you're dead…?" Violet stared at Moira, mouth hanging slightly open.<p>

"Shut your mouth, dear." Moira responded "It's not becoming."

Violet did so, pushing the curtain of hair away from her face and folding her arms across her chest.

"You're dead." She repeated.

"You might say that," Moira agreed "…though I must admit, I'd always fancied that death would be slightly more restful. I didn't anticipate that the afterlife would consist of my cleaning up after spoiled nouveau riche tenants." She gave Violet a pointed look "…still. It passes the time."

"Is _everyone_in this goddamn house a ghost!" Violet demanded. She felt exasperated by the whole scenario. It was enough to know that her boyfriend was a dead, unbalanced mass-murderer without having to deal with the fact that the woman who scrubbed her toilets was _also_undead.

Moira laughed, coldly. "Of course not dear. Just the majority of us. Which is why you need to be careful," she shot Violet a stern look "…you and your mother are out numbered. Please don't forget that."

"Tate said they couldn't hurt me. The ghosts."

"Were you listening to a word I just said?" Moira let out a heavy sigh, moving to the kitchen bench and beginning to put away the dishes. "He's disturbed, Miss Harmon. Why would you trust him to tell you the truth?"

Violet picked at a stray thread on her sweater.

"He's never lied to me," she began, quietly "he –"

"How on earth would you know if he'd lied?" Moira turned around again, wiping her hands on her apron with a briskness that betrayed her annoyance. "You're only just learning the secrets of this house. You have no _idea_what's true and what's false."

Violet frowned, continuing to unpick the loose thread on her sleeve. She hadn't thought of it that way. She'd trusted Tate implicitly – because he was Tate. Because he'd never given her a direct reason not to. And he'd said he loved her…all that stuff about never hurting someone you loved. He'd saved her life. Why would he do all that and then purposefully keep things from her? It didn't make sense.

"Did he tell you he was a ghost?" Moira pressed.

"No," Violet mumbled "…but Constance told me he didn't know – that he needed help to um…pass over, or move on, or…ascend or whatever."

Moira snorted.

"What!" Violet demanded, meeting Moira's gaze with a scowl. She hadn't come down here for a lecture – in fact, she hadn't come down here to speak with Moira at all. "I shouldn't trust Constance either, right? Because she killed her husband – and you – and therefore she's a terrible person who's trying to lead me down the path of death and destruction for…some unknown reason. Well shit!" Violet threw up her hands "Guess I should just blindly trust _you_instead! Not that I have a reason to – not that I have any reason to believe you're not bullshitting me just as much as Constance, or Tate, or anybody else."

Moira folded her arms. The corners of her shrivelled mouth turned downwards.

"Are you quite finished?"

"_Quite_." Violet shot back.

"I do not expect you to trust me implicitly, Miss Harmon. I only ask that you take what I have to say on board; that you consider it. Ask yourself this – if Tate is unaware that he's a ghost, why is he not extremely perplexed about your presence in his old room?

Violet fell silent.

"…this house saw something in Tate, Miss Harmon. It took that darkness and it twisted it, moulded it, formed it into something that it could use. What happened to Tate in that basement didn't change him…but it did make him more fully what he already was. And that person – the real Tate – is not a person you should wish to involve yourself with. I don't believe you've met that Tate, Miss Harmon – otherwise you would not be slouching around this kitchen right now, looking as though you haven't slept in days, mooning over him. So ask yourself – if you don't know these things about him, what manner of lie – of fabrication – have you been devoting your time and energy to?"

Violet stood up, brushing her hair behind her ear. She gave Moira a slow, appraising look.

"I don't trust you," she replied, coldly "Just so we're clear."

"Good." Said Moira "Don't, then. But be smart enough to question what other people tell you, as well. Use your _brain,_Violet Harmon. Pay less attention to this –" Moira shoved a bony finger at Violet's chest. Violet was half surprised to find that it hurt. Moira may well have been a ghost, but she was a solid, bony ghost. A ghost capable of interacting with the things and people around her. Just like Tate.

And if the ghosts in the house could touch the living, logically, that meant they were perfectly capable of hurting them too.

* * *

><p>When you're called back, it's like waiting on the shore for a wave to engulf you. Tate can see it coming – the light – but he's scared. He's scared not of what lies on the other side, but of the process. The slow drowning he knows he has to experience in order to return to the land of the living.<p>

The first few times it happened, he thought perhaps something else might be waiting for him on the other side of all that light. Something good. Something better. He thought perhaps it was his time.

He had wanted to cross over, then. He'd wanted it so badly that the disappointment, when he woke up back in the basement, pained him almost physically.

Now he knows. There is no heaven, for him. No hell. Just endless years trapped within the confines of his old house, attempting to atone, attempting everything he can think of to change _something_. It feels like that stupid film – Groundhog Day. Fuck it. He never liked Bill Murray anyway.

But this time, when the light swallows him up, he doesn't feel disappointed. When it scorches his skin, when it creeps into his mouth and up his nose and sinks through his pores, he doesn't panic. He lets the light take hold, and when he wakes up on the floor of the basement, coughing and spluttering, trying in vain to find a light-switch so he can see what's going on, he isn't disappointed.

He's right where he needs to be.

_Ever since you got here, this is the better place._

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><p>"What have you been telling her…about my son?"<p>

Constance stood in the doorway to the Harmon's kitchen, a cigarette dangling loosely from her fingertips.

Moira's face closed up like a crumpled piece of paper.

"Oh, come on now…" Constance slipped through the doorway, taking a deep drag of nicotine. She exhaled slowly. Smoke poured from her nostrils lending her the appearance of a discontented dragon. "I know you've been speaking with the littlest Harmon."

"You can't smoke in here." Moira replied, coldly. "Madame wil-"

"Cut the crap, Moira." Constance flicked ash into the sink. "You've been telling tales about my boy. I want to know what you said."

"Did your psychic friend tell you that?" Moira quipped, the ghost of amusement playing across her features. "I didn't tell her anything that wasn't true. Unlike you, I've no interest in making a pawn of some innocent little-"

"Innocent!" Constance laughed, raggedly "As if anyone who takes up residence in this house ever is. And aren't you the hypocrite – a bastion of goodness and purity now, are you? Don't pretend as though your moral track record is so spotless, missy. Did you tell our little Violet _why_you're dead?"

Moira turned her back on Constance, stooping to unload the dishwasher.

"Pretending as though you can't hear me won't work either, you know." Constance finished off her cigarette, dropping the butt to the floor. Moira turned, glaring at her. With a victorious smirk, Constance ground the butt into the freshly waxed floorboards with the toe of her shoe.

"The Harmon's have an ally in me, as long as I remain in this house." Moira pronounced, slowly. "And you've assured that I'll be here a good long while."

"Leave my son out of it." Constance retorted, her eyes narrowing. "You may be assured a lengthy tenure in the service of this house, Moira, but the Harmons fate is decidedly less certain."

With that, she turned and swept from the room, the kitchen door slamming shut behind her.


	7. I'm in the basement, baby  drop on by

**AN:** _A__ reader __pointed __out __the__ inconsistency__ in__ my__ Tate-timeline__ (regarding__ chapter __5). __They__'__re __right, __and__ it __was __good __to __have __it__ brought __to__ my__ attention, __but __I__ thought __I__'__d__ address __this__ now__ to __save __trouble __later. __This __story __is __only __going __to__ be __canon__ compliant __through __roughly __episode __5/6. __As__ for __Tate__'__s __timeline __and __the __flashbacks, __for __reasons __of__ propriety __and__ content __(this __story __will __probably __nudge__ the __edges __of __R-rating__ from__ time __to __time), __I__'__ve __set __it __that __Tate__'__s__ father__ died__ when __he__ was __about __14__ (in__ 1991). __A__ few__ chapters __back __another __reader__ suggested __I__ not __worry __too __much__ about __making__ this__ story __canon __compliant __as__ new__ episodes __came __out, __and__ whilst __I__ did__ try__ for __awhile,__ I__'__m__ beginning __to__ realise __they __are __right__ – __it__'__s__ too __hard, __when __one __doesn__'__t __know__ where __the __show __is __really __headed.__ Hopefully__ you __guys__ will__ still__ enjoy __the __story __as __a__ stand__ alone __that __will__ quite __likely__ head__ in__ a__ different__ direction __to __the __show! __Cheers_

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><p><em>1992<em>

Tate closed the basement door behind him with a soft click. His heart beat was pounding in his throat, his fingers shaking as he turned the knob until it stuck. The hallway was deserted, the house silent. He leaned against the door, closing his eyes.

He'd been visiting the things in the basement for just over eight months. When Moira had first suggested he go down there he'd brushed it off, figured it for the babblings of some bitter slut who'd lost her job. But curiosity and boredom had got the better of him. One rainy afternoon, when his mom was out running one of her many 'errands', Tate had gone down into the dark, dank basement for the first time since his father had died.

At first he hadn't seen much. It was feelings, mostly – a prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck, an accelerated heart-beat, a kind of coldness…and the nausea. He'd felt so sick the first few times he'd explored the basement…so much so that he'd often thrown up later, when he was lying in bed trying to sleep. But he hadn't seen anything: not at first. He was almost convinced he'd just been freaking himself out – working himself up into such a state that he had nightmares about what could be lurking in the basement…strange shapes moving in the darkness. Things with too many teeth.

But then one night it had started talking to him. The basement thing. He wasn't sure what it was, exactly. He still wasn't sure. It wouldn't let him see its face. But it was smart. And it was funny. And it was almost as pissed off at the world as he, Tate, so often was.

Sure, he'd been scared of it initially. Its voice sounded…wrong. Not human, somehow. A wheezing, child-like tone that reminded him of the voices they gave to animated puppets in those creepy made-for-TV movies they showed around Halloween. But over time, he came to realise that it didn't want to hurt him. It was lonely, like he was. They shared many of the same views: disappointment in how the world worked. Anger at the people who kept it that way.

And it liked blood, just as much as he did.

It was nice…to find someone he had something in common with.

Tate walked down the hallway as quietly as he could, pausing at the foot of the stairs to listen. Nothing. Not a sound from upstairs – no footsteps, no music, no voices. His mother and his sister were asleep. He let out a small sigh.

"What are you _doing, _Tate?"

Adelaide stood behind him, staring at him quizzically from under a mop of wavy brown hair. She blinked, eyes wide and bright like an owl.

Tate shook his head at her, putting his finger to his lips.

"Shh, okay?" he murmured, reaching out to take her arm, tugging her toward the stairs. "You should be asleep. You know mom hates it when you wander around at night."

"I was playing."

"Playing?" he raised an eyebrow at her as the two of them walked up the stairs. "Playing with what?"

"With the lady."

"What lady?" Tate frowned at her. Adelaide had always been a weird little girl – their mother always said so. More often than not she could be found standing in the corner of a room, staring fixedly into space, head cocked to the side like a small dog listening for a sound too high for human ears to hear. She'd laugh for no reason, start conversations with walls, or floorboards, or the ceiling fan. But that was normal kid stuff – or so Tate had always figured. Every little kid had an imaginary friend. Addy's imagination was just better than most.

But now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure. He'd always dismissed Addy's oddities as childish fantasies – coping mechanisms, maybe. It's not like she had that many friends – Constance made sure of that. But wasn't he, himself, aware now of something lurking in the house? Some unseen presence? He'd been talking to it for months…

Addy smiled, reaching out for Tate's hand.

"The lady who comes to the house. She's always so sad. But I talk to her. She brushes my hair sometimes. She likes me."

Tate nodded, slowly.

"Do you have any other friends in the house, Addy?"

Addy nodded enthusiastically.

"What about dad?" they'd reached the top of the stairs now, and Tate stopped outside the door to Adelaide's room. "Do you see dad ever?"

This was something he'd wondered since the day Moira told him to check out the basement. If his father was dead, did that mean he was a ghost? Did that mean he was still around somewhere, lurking in the basement, or in the attic, or in some other neglected part of the house? But all he'd found was the rasping baby voice in the basement, and as intriguing and oddly comforting though it was, he couldn't help but feel disappointed.

Addy wrinkled her nose at him and shook her head.

"No, silly. Daddy left."

"But what if…what if he didn't leave?" Tate pushed, his blond hair flopping over his eyes as he stooped to look at Addy. "What if he's still here in the house somewhere. What if he di-"

Addy's face had gone blank. She was staring at a fixed point behind Tate, eyes wide.

Tate turned.

Constance stood in the doorway of Addy's room, arms folded.

"Out of bed again?" she brushed past Tate, grabbing a hold of Addy's arm sharply. Adelaide winced, her face screwing up into a knot.

"Mom!" Adelaide wailed as Constance yanked her back towards the door to her room.

Constance made a growling sound in the back of her throat, manoeuvring Addy into the room before placing both hands on the little girl's shoulders.

"What have I told you about sneaking around this house at night?" she hissed, shaking Adelaide's shoulders. "Night-time is for sleeping, little miss – and in your own damn bed, not on the floor of the goddamn kitchen or wherever else you end up. This isn't a game, Adelaide. And this is your last warning. No more wandering about – do you understand?"

Adelaide sniffled heavily, her face still screwed up in misery.

"Don't yell at her…" Tate mumbled, weakly. There was no point butting in – he knew that from experience. But the sight of Adelaide distressed made his chest tighten uncomfortably. "C'mon, mom…"

Constance gave Adelaide another little push inside the room before shutting the bedroom door on her. She turned to glare at Tate.

"And what about you?" she demanded, angrily. "What the HELL do you think you were doing out of bed?"

"I went to look for Addy." He lied, smoothly.

Constance's eyes narrowed, but she took a step away from the door, back towards her room.

"Don't think I'm not keeping an eye on you, my boy. Just because you're not a mongoloid doesn't mean you can keep yourself out of trouble. I'm watching. Understand?" she looked at him for a moment before disappearing back inside her bedroom.

Tate rolled his eyes, trying to push down the swell of anger that was threatening to bubble out in a stream of expletives aimed directly at his mother's closed door.

"Understand this." He muttered, and gave the door the finger.

* * *

><p>Violet descended the stairs to the basement. It was late – close to midnight – but she hadn't been able to sleep. Her conversation with Moira had unsettled her at first, but the more she thought about it, the more it pissed her off. The stupid old bat hadn't told her anything remotely useful. She still didn't know if Tate was gone (and if so, where) and whether she would be able to bring him back.<p>

The basement had seemed like a good idea. Tate seemed to like skulking around there. Maybe he hadn't even gone anywhere at all. Maybe he'd just been sulking, hiding in the basement, waiting for her to apologise.

She trailed her fingertips along the banister, stepping off the bottom most stair and glancing around the dimly lit room. There was a large moon tonight, but still very little light filtered through the ground-level windows. There was a scent of dry dust, and damp clothing. Basement smell. She'd almost grown fond of it.

"Tate?" she called out, quietly. She felt stupid somehow, calling his name into an empty basement. She was beginning to feel like she'd made him up inside her head. Maybe there had never been a Tate Langdon. Not a proper, flesh and blood one. Not for many, many years. Maybe ghosts weren't real – maybe Constance, Moira – the whole lot of them were just fucking with her, adding to her ridiculous delusion. Maybe she was just crazy. And lonely. How fucking pathetic.

Violet backed up against the stairs, tipping her head back to rest on the wooden banister. She closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of mould and age and night-time. If she stayed like this, maybe she could imagine him back into existence. It would be just like the night before Halloween – minus the creepy fetish suit, preferably. He'd be here, pressing her against the wall, kissing her neck…

A hand rested on her shoulder.

Violet jumped.

"Vi, honey…." Vivien's voice was concerned, sleepy. "What are you doing down here? It's the middle of the night…"

Violet turned, heart pounding in her chest.

"Mom! You scared the shit out of me."

"I'm sorry honey. Come on up to bed…you shouldn't be down here. Come on…"

From the shadows, Tate watched as Vivien led Violet up the stairs. The basement door clicked shut hollowly.

From the darkness, the voice spoke.

_You know what you have to do._

"I know," Tate said, his voice echoing emptily against the slick, dank walls of the basement. "Yeah. I know."


	8. There is a light that never goes out

Violet slept uneasily.

She was having a dream she often had; she'd returned to her old highschool in Boston. But this time the dream was different. Nobody noticed her as she walked through the halls. Where usually she would have been greeted by smiling dream-faces, embraced by the shadowy dream-arms of her old friends, this time nobody acknowledged her as she passed. She stood inches away from her closest friend, a girl named Emily, and though she tried to speak to her, no words came out. Her mouth moved - she could feel it - but the sounds wouldn't come, and soon she found herself screaming into Emily's blank face, reaching out to beat her fists against the other girl's back as she turned around, not registering Violet's presence at all.

Her fists did not collide with Emily's retreating figure. Instead, Violet's hands - pale, insubstantial - passed right through Emily.

The school bell rang, loud, insistent. Slowly, the hallways began to clear, leaving Violet alone. In the dream, this frightened her. It felt as though something was coming...as though being alone somehow made her more visible.

There was a noise behind her. She turned, and somehow found herself detatched from her body. Somehow, the noise that had startled her was the sound of her own boot kicking open the door to the hallway. Violet watched herself standing there, her face as blank and empty as Emily's had been. She was wearing one of Tate's baggy jumpers, and from beneath it, Violet saw herself pull out something hard and metallic.

It was then that Violet understood that what she had been afraid of, standing alone in the hallway, was herself.

She awoke with a start, heart pounding in her chest. The room was suffocatingly dark, and the threads of dream still clung to Violet like the sticky strands of a spider's web, so much so that she was for a few moments completely disoriented. She took a few deep breaths, listened to the sound of a light rain drumming on her windows. Fine. Everything was fine. She was not a murderer. She was not a ghost. She was alone in her bedroom, and everything was fine.

A hand snaked over her shoulder, around her neck, over her mouth before Violet had the chance to scream. Her whole body went rigid.

"Boo," Tate purred into her ear, propping himself up on one elbow as he held his other hand over her mouth.

Violet squirmed away from him, rolling over so she could see him, lying there in her bed (for fuck knows how long before she'd woken up), a tiny smirk quirking at the corners of his mouth.

She couldn't find it in her heart to be angry at him. She was too relieved.

"Tate..." suddenly all the things Violet had wanted to say were gone. She looked over at him, at his stupid perfect face, and felt utterly unable to articulate anything. She couldn't tell him how sorry she was that she'd told him to go. She couldn't ask him where he'd been, or what it was like, or how he'd come back, or whether it had been his choice. She couldn't get annoyed at him for sneaking into her room and scaring the living Christ out of her. Violet looked into Tate's eyes, and it was an effort just to exhale without shaking.

"Were you having a bad dream?" Tate reached out to stroke his fingertips across Violet's cheek, frowning at her in concern. "You were breathing really heavily. Kind of whimpering."

"I guess." she answered. The dream was becoming more foggy now. The details slipping away. "I think I was a ghost or something. Kind of invisible."

Tate laughed softly, brushing the hair out of her eyes.

"You're not a ghost." he leaned closer to her, his breath warm against her neck. "And I can see you just fine..." he paused, dropping his hand to her waist "...well. Maybe not enough of you."

Violet laughed uneasily, mostly because she wasn't sure how else to react. It seemed strange that he had reappeared so easily, as if he was never gone. It made her feel nervous, expectant - like she had felt in her dream. She was glad, of course. Relieved. But still...

Tate trailed his fingers over the rise of her hip through the oversized t-shirt she wore as a nightdress. When he reached the edge of the material he stopped, looking up at her, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. Slowly, deliberately, he pushed the fabric of her t-shirt up over the swell of her hip, revealing the cotton of her panties. He rested his hand there, the pab of his thumb stroking over her upper thigh.

Violet breathed in, shakily.

"I missed you," Tate murmured, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to her forhead.

Violet felt instantly terrible for being so awkward - so uneasy. This was what she had wanted; for him to come back. And he had.

"Where did you go...?" she asked him, guiltily. She didn't want to admit that it had been her fault...didn't want to ruin this moment by bringing up how shitty she'd felt for the past week. But it seeemed wrong to let this all continue as if nothing had happened. She needed him to forgive her - to tell her it hadn't been so bad. That he'd chosen to stay away.

Tate frowned, silent for a moment. He pushed his hand up a little higher, resting it on the bare skin of her waist. His hand was warm. It seemed to give off tiny electrical pulses that made Violet shiver in anticipation.

"It doesn't matter." he said, finally. "What matters is I'm back, right?" he glanced up at her, doubt troubling his features. "...that is what you wanted, isn't Violet? You wanted me back?"

There it was. The guilt. Clawing at the back of her throat like an angry kitten, pathetic and miserable. It made her eyes water. She blinked away tears.

"Yeah." Violet reached out for him, one hand balling around the fabric of his baggy sweater. She rested her head against his chest, breathing him in. "Of course I did. Tate...I..." she swallowed heavily "...I'm so sorry. I didn't think - I just...I..."

"Hey..." he lifted her chin up with his free hand, looking into her eyes. "Shh. Okay?" he closed the gap between them, his lips brushing against hers. "You don't have to be sorry, Vi. I hurt you. I betrayed your trust. _I'm_sorry. Okay?"

And then she was kissing him - hot and hard, her mouth opening against his, his tongue tangling with hers. He pushed one knee between her legs as his hand skimmed over her ribs, moving to stroke the underside of her breast hesitantly. Violet squirmed against him, nipping at his bottom lip. This was right. This was how it ought to be. The two of them, together in her bed - not like Halloween. Better than that.

Tate drew in a sharp breath as she bit him, his hand splaying over her bare breast, pushing her onto her back as he rolled on top of her. He looked down at her, cheeks flushed, eyes dark.

Violet reached up to brush the hair out of his eyes.

"I missed you too..." she said, quietly. The room seemed too silent all of a sudden. The rain had stopped.

Tate's expression was unreadable. He drew his hand away from her, resting it on the mattress beside her head, using it to support himself. He breathed deeply, steadily.

"I shouldn't have woken you up." he said, at length. "You need sleep."

"Tate!"

"Sorry." he leaned in to kiss her, the barest brush of his lips against her mouth.

Violet stared at him, her brow furrowing in confusion.

"I don't get it, why...?"

"Sorry." he said again, awkwardly. He rolled away from her, curling up on his side. "I just...it doesn't seem like the right time."

Violet was silent. She lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling.

"I love you..." he said, softly.

"Yeah." Violet sighed, letting the silence yawn between them like an ever expanding chasm. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but it was wrong somehow. It was all wrong. And suddenly she was so very, very tired. "Will you sleep here with me?"

Tate rolled onto his back, reaching for her hand in the darkness.

"'Course I will."


	9. We Were Born to Die

**1994**

_Tate wakes up in the basement._

_It is dark, and he is frightened. He isn't sure why; he's been in the basement plenty of times before, but his heart is hammering against the walls of his chest. His breath is short and ragged. Has he been sleeping? Has he had a nightmare? Why is he down here?_

_He sits up groggily, trying to remember. Snatches of images, like the remnants of dreams, cling to his consciousness before dissipating. He remembers blood. His own? Other people's?_

_His eyes are adjusting to the light. He looks down at his hands, and finds them spotless; unblemished. And yet the memory lingers; a feeling like something is wrong - deeply, deeply wrong - something that he has done. People crying. Begging. Bodies on the floor._

_He moves his hand up his own torso cautiously. As his fingers trail over the place where his heart lies, still beating madly beneath his flesh, the realisation hits him, bullet-quick and straight to the chest._

_He'd been shot. His body was been riddled with bullets. He'd been bleeding, badly - had died. Must have died._

_But there are no wounds. Why aren't there any wounds? Why is he still alive?_

_"Have you figured it out?"_

_Moira stands in the corner, though he's sure she wasn't there a moment before. Her arms are folded across her chest and her expression is unreadable._

_"Figure what out?" he scrambles to his feet, looking around nervously. "What are you doing down here?"_

_"You're a little slow, aren't you?" Moira shakes her head, regarding Tate with a slow, appraising look. She looks sad, he decides. Or maybe disappointed._

_"What am I doing here?" he asks, fists balled in the too-long fabric of his sleeves. He mirrors her body language, folds his arms across his chest defensively. "Did I...did you drug me or something?"_

_Moira laughs, humourlessly._

_"You're dead Tate."_

_"What!"_

_"Dead. Think about it. You remember."_

_And he does. Her words dislodge another uncomfortable flurry of memories. The police storming into the house. The cop demanding to know why he'd done it as he lay on the floor, dying. Nobody helped him. His mother screaming in the hall outside._

_Only it's like he's watching it from outside his body. Like he's watching a movie. Like it didn't quite happen to him._

_"Fuck..." he mutters, his face crumpling, eyes watering. He won't cry in front of this fucking woman. He won't._

_Moira sighs, shifting awkwardly, one foot to the other. She's restless, uncertain how to behave in this situation._

_"I'm sorry." she says at last._

_"...why?" Tate manages. He's still trying to control his emotions, but it's hard. Nausea is uncoiling within him, a sick serpent sneaking up his oesophagus, bloated with the poison of memory. He knows what he has done, deep down. Layers of denial are peeled back, exposing the truth, revealing the gross, violent work of his final day alive._

_Moira can't decide what to do with her hands. She folds her arms again. Unfolds them. Places one hand on a hip, then moves it awkwardly to her shoulder, fretting with a loose strand of hair._

_"Because I didn't think it would go this far."_

_"What do you mean?" Tate looks at her in genuine confusion, pleading silently for an answer to his questions. He's scared - no, terrified. He feels sick._

_"When I sent you down here to the basement, years ago. I didn't think..." Moira falters, running out of breath "...I just wanted your mother to know what it felt, to lose someone. To have her facade of a perfect life crumble and to see it for what it really was; a farce. I wanted her one shining glory - you - to fall apart. To suffer, and in suffering, bring her down. I wanted her to know the same pain that she caused me - that she caused my mother, when I disappeared."_

_"Huh?" Tate is shaking. He chokes back a sob._

_"I'm dead, Tate. Your mother shot me in the head when she discovered your father on top of me in her bedroom."_

_"You're lying."_

_"Why would I lie?" she throws up her hands. "Your father was forcing himself on me, and your mother didn't like that. She shot me, and then she shot him."_

_"So you're a -"_

_"Ghost. The same as you."_

_Tate leans his back against the wall, squinting his eyes shut tight to prevent the spill of tears._

_"I didn't anticipate the hold the thing in this basement would have over you," Moira continues "...and for that I'm sorry. I didn't mean for -" she looks away from him, her voice dropping low "...so many lives. So many innocent people."_

_"I killed them?"_

_"You did." Moira confirms. "You killed them, and then the police came. And then they shot you dead in your own bedroom."_

_"Why would I do that?" the tears spill down his cheeks anyway. His words come out in jabs and shudders. "I don't understand - I don't get it...why don't I remember it right?"_

_"The thing that haunts this basement feeds on you, Tate. It has ever since you came down here when you were younger - but most particularly when you started talking to it. It took what was in you; all that rage and anger, all that sadness at the loss of your father, and it fed on it. It spewed those half-digested chunks of malice and violence back into your head. It worked on you. And in time there was enough of a connection that it could take hold properly - that it could ride on you, like a sort of parasite." Moira clears her throat. She looks guilty._

_"It is stronger when you lose control. When you're experiencing any strong, primal emotion. Or when your consciousness is altered artificially, through drugs, through alcohol..." she pauses, drawing a breath. "That thing is a part of you now, Tate. And it is using you. It used you to commit those murders, it wanted you to die, because in death your connection is only strengthened. There is even less to separate the two of you now that you're both of the spirit world."_

_Tate's head reels. He thinks he's going to be sick, but when he bends double to vomit, he retches dry and empty over the old bathtub._

_Moira watches him in silence._

_"What can I do?" his face is tear stained, contorted in fear and misery "...I'm dead...I know I can't change that but...how can I get rid of it?" his hands scramble over his own head and neck, as if perhaps he can dislodged the evil presence by doing so. "How do I make it go away?"_

_"I'm sorry," Moira says again. Her eyes are watering now, too. Her cheeks are flushed. "I'm sorry, Tate. I don't believe you can."_


End file.
